Mental Health

YOUR APRIL 25 editorial stated that the SenateDomenici-Wellstone amendment to Sen. Nancy Kassebaum's health care reform proposal requiring health insurance coverage mental as well as physical ailments was laudable but untimely.You equated it with increasing costs which the ''cost-conscious business community'' opposed.Yet Corporate America has been the most effective advocate for the cost effectiveness of providing a full continuum of comprehensive benefits for mental illnesses.In many ways, the Domenici-Wellstone amendment is modeled after the mental health and substance abuse benefit packages offered by major companies today.

The state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has received federal grants totaling $250,000 to help people who are having emotional or substance abuse problems as a result of last month's terrorists attacks in New York and Washington. A portion will support substance abuse programs in five counties - Anne Arundel, Frederick, Harford, Prince George's and St. Mary's - that have large military installations. Some will be used to identify gaps in mental health services throughout the state.

Harford County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann will receive the 1995 Public Official of the Year award Wednesday from the Mental Health Association of Maryland.Mrs. Rehrmann, 50, of Bel Air won for her leadership in responding to needs of the disabled and especially for her work with the mental health community, said Diane Cabot, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Maryland.The executive is the first Harford County resident to receive the award, which has been presented for more than 20 years.

A proposal to create a single agency to oversee mental health services in Howard County appeared to gain the support of the county's state legislators last night.The bill would establish a quasi-public authority to oversee community planning, management and financing of mental health services in the county.At the meeting sponsored by the county's delegation to the Maryland General Assembly, residents testified on state, regional and local issues.Although the senators and delegates did not immediately vote on whether to back the bill to create a core mental health services agency, it appeared to have enough support to go forward.

Christine Ann Bamberger, a former mental health worker at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital and Carroll County General Hospital, died Tuesday of a gastrointestinal disease at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. The Westminster resident was 36.A Baltimore native, Miss Bamberger attended Villa Julie College and held various jobs before going to work at Sheppard Pratt in the early 1990s. She worked at Carroll County General from about 1994 until failing health forced her to retire in 1996.

Members of the county's Mental Health and Addictions Advisory Committee are frustrated with the county commissioners, who in nine months have failed to respond to its recommendation to establish a nonprofit agency to coordinate services for the mentally ill.The committee's recommendation came after 18 months of studying the concept of a "core service agency (CSA)," which is endorsed and funded by the state Mental Hygiene Administration.The county commissioners say that, although they haven't made an official decision, they heavily favor either setting up a core service agency within the county health department or rejecting the CSA idea entirely.

Paula L. Platt, a former program director and mental health worker, died of cancer Monday at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Roland Park resident was 54. Born Paula Lee Platt in Baltimore, she was raised in Cedarcroft and Roland Park. She was a 1969 graduate of Roland Park Country School and earned a bachelor's degree in art history from Vassar College in 1973. After earning a master's degree in art history from the Johns Hopkins University in 1975, Ms. Platt worked as a placement director at the Maryland Institute College of Art for several years.

A two-alarm fire that started in ceiling electrical wiring caused at least $200,000 damage to the Harford County mental health clinic Friday night, authorities said.More than 100 volunteers from Bel Air, Abingdon, Fallston, Joppa-Magnolia and Level responded to the blaze at the annex on Hays Street in Bel Air.Using 15 pieces of equipment, firefighters battled the fire for 90 minutes before bringing it under control at 11:30 p.m., authorities said.Bob Thomas, deputy chief state fire marshal, said the fire started in the ceiling above a furnace and janitorial closet, and spread across the ceiling to the walls.

Army Spc. Jeffrey Henthorn, 25, of Choctaw, Okla., was sent back to Iraq for a second tour even though his superiors knew he had twice threatened suicide. When he killed himself in 2005, an Army report says, the work of his rifle was so thorough that fragments of his skull pierced the barracks ceiling. Army Pfc. David L. Potter, 22, of Johnson City, Tenn., was diagnosed with anxiety and depression while serving in Iraq in 2004. Records show that Potter remained on active duty in Baghdad despite a suicide attempt and a psychiatrist's recommendation that he be separated from the Army.

The directors of the county's newest nonprofit mental health agency, meeting for the first time yesterday, assumed control of $8 million in state money targeted for residential and outpatient treatment.The takeover marks the end of a three-year push by mental health care providers to create a private, nonprofit core agency to coordinate services for as many as 22,000 mentally ill county residents.In the past, that coordination and the allocation of money has been left up to the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in Baltimore.